Department of Psychology, Stanford University Ahmet Uysal, Department of Psychology, Stanford University David H. Rehkopf, School of Medicine, Stanford University James J. Gross, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, USA.
Department of Psychology, Stanford University Ahmet Uysal, Department of Psychology, Stanford University David H. Rehkopf, School of Medicine, Stanford University James J. Gross, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2021 Dec;291:114272. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114272. Epub 2021 Jul 26.
Having low subjective social status is associated with an array of negative health outcomes. However, the mechanisms linking subjective social status to health are not yet clear. One candidate mechanism is negative affect. Researchers have proposed that having low subjective social status may be associated with higher levels of negative affect, and these higher levels of negative affect may be associated with poor health. However, research demonstrating that status-related negative affect is prospectively associated with health in humans is limited.
We examined whether negative affect prospectively mediates the relationship between subjective social status and physical health. In addition, we tested whether reappraisal - an affect regulation strategy used to downregulate negative affect - moderates the links among subjective social status, negative affect, and physical health.
We used two-wave longitudinal data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) project to conduct a series of regression, mediation, and moderated mediation analyses to examine the relationships among subjective social status, negative affect, reappraisal, and health (i.e., four outcomes, chronic conditions, somatic symptoms, self-reported health and mortality).
Negative affect mediates the relationship between status and change in morbidity (n = 3289; i.e., change in number of chronic conditions, somatic symptoms, self-reported health) and mortality (n = 4953), such that subjective social status is inversely associated with negative affect, and negative affect is positively associated with poor health. Reappraisal moderates each of these relationships, such that individuals who are low on subjective social status and have high scores on a novel measure of reappraisal experience lower levels of negative affect and better health than individuals who are low on subjective social status but who have low scores on this measure.
These results have important implications for our understanding of subjective social status and how it relates to physical health.
主观社会地位低与一系列负面健康结果有关。然而，将主观社会地位与健康联系起来的机制尚不清楚。一个候选机制是负面情绪。研究人员提出，主观社会地位低可能与更高水平的负面情绪有关，而这些更高水平的负面情绪可能与健康状况不佳有关。然而，证明与地位相关的负面情绪与人类健康具有前瞻性关联的研究有限。
我们检验了负面情绪是否可以前瞻性地调节主观社会地位与身体健康之间的关系。此外，我们还测试了情绪再评价——一种用于下调负面情绪的情绪调节策略——是否调节了主观社会地位、负面情绪和身体健康之间的联系。
我们使用美国中期生活（MIDUS）项目的两波纵向数据进行了一系列回归、中介和调节中介分析，以检验主观社会地位、负面情绪、情绪再评价与健康（即四个结果，慢性疾病、躯体症状、自我报告的健康和死亡率）之间的关系。
负面情绪调节了地位与发病率变化（n=3289；即慢性疾病、躯体症状、自我报告健康状况的变化）和死亡率（n=4953）之间的关系，即主观社会地位与负面情绪呈负相关，负面情绪与健康状况不佳呈正相关。情绪再评价调节了这些关系中的每一个，即主观社会地位低且情绪再评价新量表得分高的个体比主观社会地位低但该量表得分低的个体体验到更低水平的负面情绪和更好的健康状况。
这些结果对我们理解主观社会地位及其与身体健康的关系具有重要意义。
